Remember the end of the original The Fast and the Furious movie where Vin Diesel and Paul Walker were racing and they were being chased by the cops? They ended up racing against a train and barely avoided getting hit by it.

Well, you can now call me the Fast and the Bitter. Well, that doesn’t sound right. Suggestions for a better name for me? Anyways, I had a similar experience the other day. You see, I work about a block away from the train tracks. These are no ordinary trains that take people to work though. These are trains that are rarely used, and to be honest, very slow. But just like any other race with a train, there was some urgency and danger going along with my race. Because the train is slow and had a lot of cars, if I got caught at the crossing, I would have been late…for my lunch.

And you know as much as I do, how valuable it is to squeeze every second of lunch that you can before having to go back to work. I couldn’t let this train derail my lunch. (Get it, derail?) At first, it looked like the train was barely moving, so it would be no trouble. But two things happened that ratcheted up the intensity of the race. One, the train started picking up some steam. And two, the stoplight changed to a yellow way before I could get to it. So now I was counting down the seconds that it changed to green, all the while the train up ahead was starting to pick up steam.

The train got a little ahead as I impatiently waited for the light to turn to green. I slammed on the accelerator with all the force of a thousand egg sandwiches, which I would be late on consuming if I missed this train crossing. I was even with the train, but as you know, trains always win, so I couldn’t just be even. I had to push the limits of the speed limit, if I was to avoid the agonizing wait of the red warning lights. I looked in my rear view at all the cars that would miss their lunches and that motivated me to move even faster. It came down to a few crucial seconds. I’m no Vin Diesel or Paul Walker. I had to avoid the warning lights, because I am a law abiding citizen. I don’t ram through warning bars, so I had to get there BEFORE they went down. With a few seconds to spare, I beat the train and could see the warning bars come down on all the people behind me.

Could you avoid the Bitter Friday Giftures like I did the train…Not likely…

That’s right train…

I left you…

Try as you might…

You can try to light the way...

You won’t be smiling…

When you mess with me, you will lose…

You may have a following…

I will have you…

Saving all that energy…

Instead of focusing on me…

And think twice…

Before you…

So again, you can mess with me in a lot of ways, but don’t you dare mess with my lunchtime. Any suggestions about what you can call me would be great. Let me know if the comments.

ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

Bitter Racing Trains Ben